EECKHOUT, Gerbrand van den

This painting showing five stylish young people socializing on a garden terrace, is typical of Van den Eeckhout in the early 1650s. Unfortunately, it is in a very poor state of preservation.

The subject of this picture is taken from the Old testament (Gen. 18:1-19). While Abraham sat at the tent door in the middle of the day three men appeared before him. Realizing that they were angels he bowed down before them, fetched water and washed their feet; then with the traditional hospitality of the nomad he brought them food. The angels prophesied that a son would be born to Abraham’s wife Sarah. But Sarah laughed at the idea because by now they were old and ‘well stricken by age’. However she afterwards bore Isaac so the prophecy was fulfilled.

In art, the three visitors are usually represented as angels with wings. Abraham’s dwelling, contrary to the text, is a building rather than a tent. The angels were regarded as symbol of the Trinity and their prophecy was made a prefiguration of the Annunciation.

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In the Biblical story the prophet commands his servant to go with the kneeling woman and resurrect her dead son. In the typological comparison of Old and New Testament themes the kneeling Shunammite is a prefiguration of Mary Magdalene at the feet of Christ.

The characteristic head of the old man clearly shows the influence of Rembrandt.

The subject of Isaac Blessing Jacob was a popular one and was represented by several Dutch pupils and followers of Rembrandt in the 1640s. Similarly to the other versions, this painting shows the influence of Rembrandt. The arrangement of the exotic bed, with its fancy head- and footboard, the canopy above, the table, and the platform seem to have been inspired by Rembrandt’s Danaë of 1636.

The silver ewer in the painting stands for the riches that Jacob will inherit, and reproduces one of the first masterpieces of the auricular style in the Netherlands, Adam van Vianen’s covered ewer made in 1614 for the Amsterdam guild of silversmiths. This work captured the imagination of numerous painters, in part because its bizarre form allowed it to pass as an object from an ancient and foreign land. Examples of the numerous paintings in which it is incorporated include a kitchen scene by Adriaen van Nieulandt, and a large canvas by Govert Flinck.

Jeroboam was the first king of the break-away ten tribes or Northern Kingdom of Israel, over whom he reigned twenty-two years. According to the Bible (1 Kings 13:1-6, 9), while he was engaged in offering incense at Bethel, a prophet from Judah appeared before him with a warning message from the Lord.

Most of van den Eeckhout’s genre paintings date to the early 1650s, when he depicted several images of elegant courtship. A good example is his Party on a Terrace of 1652, which shows young people congregating on a classical portico before a park-like setting containing a statue of Cupid. This setting, the relaxed poses of the figures, their sartorial splendour, and even the artist’s vibrant palette, doubtlessly inspired by Flemish art, all convey an atmosphere of affluence and nonchalance.

The portrait shows the nineteen-year-old Maria Dircksdr. Bogaert, from a Delft Regent family. She is dressed in a fashionable black gown with a broad collar made from expensive Italian lace. The same lace pattern is found in the decorations of the white chemise, which is visible under the short sleeves of the dress. Black ribbons at her elbows, pearls around her neck, on her ears and in her hair point to an affluent milieu.

This is the earliest extant portrait by van den Eeckhout. The painter had a clear preference for history paintings and portraits such as this are relatively rare in his oeuvre.

The sitter is presented here as Daifilo, a shepherd who was one of the young lovers in Granida, a pastoral play by Pieter Cornelisz Hooft (c. 1605). Granida was the first pastoral play in the Dutch language, a fact which may explain its enduring popularity throughout the seventeenth century. Van den Eechkout himself painted a number of works on the theme.

In this painting the artist combines the elements of the landscape, portrait, and genre.

The painting is signed at bottom right: G.v.Eeckhout f. A. 1667.

The artist painted several versions of this subject. It is assumed from the different colouring of the left and right parts of the painting that it is an early work of the painter (1641) completed in the last decade of his life.

Eeckhout was a Dutch painter of portraits, religious subjects and genre, active in Amsterdam. He was a friend and favourite pupil of Rembrandt and a close imitator of his style. In about 1655 he painted a number of scenes in the totally different manner of Ter Borch.

Eeckhout’s Scholar with his Books gives us no impression of the wisdom evoked in Rembrandt’s portrait of the Old Rabbi. Here we see an industrious pedant whose learning is indicated only by external objects-the books and the globe. The learned men portrayed by Vermeer and Rembrandt are men of exceptional qualities but their portraits cannot be called genre paintings. This picture by Eeckhout is certainly a genre painting, the sitter, however, is not shown to be a sage but a burgher. The warm brownish-red and yellowish colours and the manner of painting are reminiscent of Rembrandt’s later style.

The painting shows the influence of Rembrandt.

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As a painter, Van der Eeckhout is known mostly for history pictures and genre scenes. His approximately two hundred known drawings reveal a greater versatility, for they include portraits, figure studies, landscapes, designs for ornamental engravings and goldsmith’s works, as well as genre scenes and biblical subjects. Most of his rather simple landscape drawings are topographical studies.

The episode depicted, narrated by Livy and Valerius Maximus, tells of how after the taking of Carthage in 209 BC Scipio had treated with respect a beautiful virgin, one of the hostages who had been consigned to him, and had sent her back to her intended husband and parents with the sole recommendation that her suitor strived for peace between Rome and Carthage. The parents present themselves before Scipio, enthroned after his victory, who refuses to accept the gold of the ransom they have brought, while the maiden’s gallant, with sword and helmet, listens to the generous sentence. The parents’ offer of gold and silver objects include the famous drinking horn of Adam van Vianen.

Christ revelation to his followers at Emmaus that he had risen from the dead was the subject that most appealed to Rembrandt from the death and after-death of Christ. His mysterious evocations of that scene were among the most influential in his work. In the 1660s, a pupil like Gerbrand van den Eeckhout transformed a Rembrandt Christ at Emmaus of 1648 into a Last Supper of his own.

Contrary to the soldiers in the guardroom scenes by Codde and Duyster painted two decades before, Eeckhout presents officers cleansed of the rugged bearing and brutish behaviour of their counterparts in the genre paintings from the 1630s. These men play tric-trac in a gentlemanly manner.

The subject is from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the god of the seasons, disguised as an old woman, tries to seduce Pomona, goddess of the fruit-gardens. It was proved by scholars that the figure of Pomona is a portrait.